Home Strangerthingau

Chapter 7

No Tracks to Follow

Hopper sighed and put his head in his hands. He looked over at the time that read 9:00. It was dark outside with it being the middle of winter. He was working late again, looking at every box, every file he had on Chicago Lab and Hawkins Lab. Still, just like the rest of the days, he had no leads.

He sighed and started to get her things packed up for the night, placing things back into their original boxes. As he was cleaning, the same questions ran through his head he has every night.

Where is Brenner? How is he so good at hiding his tracks?

Within a few days of finding El's body, Hopper had went to the laboratory to see if he could find any clues. Nothing. There was nothing. He search every room on every floor for anything. Maybe a file cabinet they left behind, or a piece of equipment they didn't pack up, or slip of paper that maybe drop out of a file when they were packing things away. Nothing. Not even a drop of chemicals or any of that science bullshit they play with.

At one point during the search, Hopper tried to look in the ceiling or floors for anything. In the end, he had one destroyed laboratory and two empty hands.

He had asked around wondering if anyone knew a Martin Brenner, or if anyone had seen a white haired man walking around town and if they knew where he went.

He also took some time off of his real job to travel to the old lab in Chicago. Just like the lab back in Hawkins, it was completely deserted. That still didn't stop him from destroying the place looking for clues. And just like Hawkins, there was nothing.

Now he's here, looking through the files he had stolen from Chicago Lab when he first helped El. After looking through all of the Chicago/ Hawkins lab newspaper articles in the library, he turned to the only idea he had left. He couldn't even find anything in there either.

He was beginning to give up hope. He always thought he would be the last person to do that. But here he is, being the first. He knew once the others figured out they would also give up hope too. That's why he's been double checking, almost triple checking the files. He didn't want them to not be satisfied with the ending of El's story.

He knew they wanted to at least find Brenner and make him pay for what he'd done. That would have been as much of a happy ending they could give her, and here he is, knowing that's not going to happen.

Hopper sighed for the umpteenth time that night and grabbed his coat and hat leaving the station. He got in his car and knew that tonight was the last night he would be home late.

He didn't think at all while he drove. He didn't want to think about telling his family, about their reactions, their emotions. He couldn't even bare it in his own mind.

He drove up to the house and just sat in his car for a few minutes contemplating what he was going to say. He even thought about going to a bar for couple of hours until a knocking on his window scared him out of his thoughts. He jumped and looked to see Joyce with a confused look on her face.

"Hop?" Joyce said through the window. "What are you doing?"

Hopper sighed and stepped out of the car. As he closed the door he leaned against the truck trying to act normal. But Joyce was smart, and she notices things he didn't even see. "What's going on? Why are you...not you?"

He looked down at his wife, already hating himself for thinking about telling her this. "Why don't we go inside? I need to talk to Will too." He said trying to make more time for him to think about what to say.

Before he even knew it happened, he was sitting at the dining table with Joyce and Will looking at him with hopeful eyes.

He knew he should get to the point, there's no reason to drag it out more. "There's, uh, nothing more for me to do." Hopper said shaking his head solemnly and looked down. He couldn't watch the hopefulness wash away from them.

"What?" Joyce's voice croaked, like she was on the verge of crying.

Hopper looked up, ready to face them. "I have looked everywhere I thought they could be. I've read every newspaper on them out there. I even read through the files I have on them twice, some three times."

"That doesn't mean that all leads are gone." Will said not wanting to give up. "I mean, is-isn't there like a person who worked for them you can question or a-a page left out of the files?"

"Kid, I'm sorry." Hopper said trying to calm him down. "I don't know who worked with them and I know there were no more pages. It's done."

"No, it's not done!" Will raised his voice for the second time that. "You give up on it if you want, but I'm not."

Will pushed his chair back as Joyce tried to have him stay with them by grabbing his hands. "Will, ple-"

"No!" Will said ripping his hands from hers and leaving the kitchen. Once Will's door slammed a Joyce got up and walked away, leaving Hopper to his own thoughts.

Authors note
Thanks again for reading! I really enjoyed writing this chapter for some reason...I don't know why. I know I said last chapter I would work on this all day but I actually just watch Locke and Key on Netflix. (It is SO good by the way. I'm on the last episode). So I didn't write this until the evening, and I don't know if there will an update tomorrow. We'll see, we'll see.